To ISU Professors:

I believe that I have thought about the problem of post-tenure reviews in some depth. I only come up with very negative vibes and views. It was only one year ago that the faculty at ISU voted down a post-tenure review policy. For the majority of the faculty that I have talked with, they say they voted against the philosophy of post-tenure reviews and not the policy per se. It blows my mind that President Jischke and the Board of Regents would so blatantly say "Adopt a policy or else and you will have a post-tenure review policy by December 1999". This is very bad form and it smacks of a very heavy-handed dictatorship; it does not sit well! I guess President Jischke and the Board of Regents don't care -- "The end justifies the means".

Why would a majority of the voting faculty vote against such a policy? There are several reasons.

(1) Post-tenure reviews, by definition, destroy tenure and thereby threaten Academic Freedom.

Some say that it doesn't destroy tenure and threaten Academic Freedom. In some cases, maybe most, it might not. But, it is like the death penalty in which an innocent person is executed. If Academic Freedom is lost in only one instance, it is one too many! How can this happen? Post-tenure reviews can too easily be misused. Oh, some say that safe-guards are built in by referring to the "Faculty Handbook". Baloney! It still can be misused because it sets the stage for the muzzling and eliminating professors that speak out about university policies or take unpopular positions (if you will, politically incorrect but not illegal). It can be used to control the teaching, research, and creativity of professors. How so? The review committee could say that the student evaluations are too low, GIVE higher grades; your methods must not be effective -- change them; your examinations are too hard, make them easier. On research, the review committee could say that your research in not relevant -- do such and such -- do something useful -- change fields, the research is passe. This, of course, is by a group of peers that work in other fields -- of course fields that are relevant. The review committee could, without knowledge and experience, tell the professor to create a better picture, a better book, a better whatever. If this doesn't smack of the loss of Academic Freedom, I don't know what does.

(2) Post-tenure reviews also could contribute another very negative condition. It could and probably would produce deep divisions and resentments between professors and between professors and the university administration, which would produce a very poor working environment, the loss of collegial interaction, and the loss of morale. It essentially could pit a group of professors against a single professor. Again, some would say that this would never happen! It must be pointed out, however, that the names of the reviewers have to made known by law. The accused has the US Constitutional right to be faced by his/her accusers. It does not take much imagination to picture how one would react to even a mildly negative review. And reviews, by their very nature, are often negative. After all you have to say something don't you? How many of you have gotten a manuscript rejected unjustly or have had some stupid comments made about the manuscript by a so-called expert reviewer? How did you feel? Believe me these things happen and they will happen in the post-tenure review process too.

(3) What about the cost? This has not ever been analyzed. Why not? How many man-woman hours will be spent developing materials for the review? How many man-woman hours will be spent evaluating the materials. What I have heard from those that have done this, is that it is very time consuming. And to what end? Will the reviewed professor be "made" better. I do not think so. We, of course, can say that we have done it and we now have better creditability with the public. I don't think so. If our Administrators were doing their job of properly representing us, the question would never have come up. We are evaluated, yearly to get a salary. Why then the so-called in depth review off the post-tenure review. The time, energy, and creativity in preparing and evaluating would more profitably be spent on preparing better lectures, hand-outs, examinations, experiments, research grants, books, research manuscripts, review articles, and so forth. What then will this post-tenure review accomplish? It will give better control of the faculty by the University Administration, that's what it will give! Oh yes, it will also give reams of paper and use up several trees too!

Prof. Dennis Ross, the chairman of the FS committee that drafted the present policy, said on the Senate floor that this is "fear-mongering". In the next breath, however, he says that if we don't adopt the policy, President Jischke and the Board of Regents will give us a policy that would be much worse and we would not like. If this isn't fear, I don't know what fear is, and it appears that Prof. Ross contradicts himself. You should not be afraid of post-tenure reviews, but if you don't adopt it you should be afraid. Talk about fear-mongering.

Will post-tenure reviews make Iowa State University number one? No Way!!! The faculty should again vote against this very bad policy.

John Robyt, Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics